1647 



^ 



Concerning 
Peace and War 




BY 

William Hathorn Mills 



CONCERNING 
PEACE AND WAR 



By 

WILLIAM HATHORN MILLS 



San Bernardino, California 

BARNUM & FLAGG COMPANY 

1919 

Copyright 






^\ 



APR 22 1919 

^ul.A516284 



^ 



In the Valley of Decision 

(Joel III. 14.) 

MIGHT against Right — the brute Beast boasts 
Its mailed fist and sharp sword, 
Talks of its "Day," and sends its hosts 
To prove it Earth's war-lord. 

Right against Might — to guard His own, 

And make the evil cease, 
The Lamb goes forth, and takes the crown 

That crowns Him Prince of Peace. 



Contents 

Page 

In the Valley of Decision 3 

Laus Deo •- 5 

A League of Nations '. 5 

Der Tag 6 

R. I. P 7 

Lama Sabachthani ? 8 

A War of the Lord 10 

Lux e Tenebris 11 

An Antichrist 12 

Megalomania 13 

Hearts of Oak 14 

Parta Quies 15 

Faithful Unto Death 16 

"Their Wonted Fires" 17 

An American Citizen 18 

A Man 19 

A Veteran : 20 

A Portrait 22 

The Cro-Magnons 22 

Survivals 24 

Distress of Nations 25 

How Long, Master? 26 

Note. For details of facts see "Men of the Old Stone Age," 

by H. F. Osborn, and "The Living Age," February 16, May 18, 
June 1, July 27, October 19, 1918. 



Laus Deo 

NOW thank we God for that the Right 
Has triumphed gloriously, 
Has won at last the longdrawn fight 
Against brute tyranny. 

For Freedom and for Truth we fought: 

For little nations' weal; 
They called; with all our strength we sought 

To answer their appeal. 

Thro* good days and thro' evil days 

We waged the bitter fight, 
Till— God of battles! Thine the praise— 

We broke the tyrant's might. 

Was Verdun hill Har-Magedon? 

It saw a strife at least 
That smote the pride of Babylon, 

And crushed the abysmal Beast. 

Now peace is ours; make. Lord of all, 

That peace world-harmony — 
An earnest of millennial 

Good-will and equity. 



A League of Nations 

THE war we waged is fought and won — 
Won for the Truth and Right— 
And now, thank God! our battling done. 
Peace dawns upon our sight. 



Our warriors all have played their part, 

But peace claims effort still; 
teach our statesmen, Thou, Who art 

The Prince of Peace, Thy will. 

Teach them to take for Rule the new 
Commandment given by Thee, 

And bid the whole wide world ensue 
Justice and Charity. 

Peace is a bond; Lord, make our peace * 

Union for common good: 
A binding pact that wars shall cease: 

A league of brotherhood. 

* Peace comes from a root PAK, to bind, whence also the 
Old Latin pac-ere, to bind. Other English derivatives are pact, 
compact, appease, etc. Vid. Skeat. 



Der Tag 

THE Day has come, but not the day 
The tyrant thought to see; 
It brings the ending of the fray. 
But not his victory. 

A day of gloom, of baffled schemes. 
Of prospect dark and grim. 

Of disappointed hopes and dreams — 
That's what it is to him. 

But what is day turned into night 
For him, and black despair, 

Opens to stragglers after Right 
A vision bright and fair. 



A day most surely of the Lord, 
It bids us lift our eyes 

Up to the hills, and look toward 
The promised Day-Star's rise. 

An earnest of what is to be, 
It pictures to our sight 

The downfall of iniquity, 

The triumph of the Right. 

"The Day." Ah, lift the insulted phrase 
To its supremest height, 

And reach toward the dawning rays 
Of the Eternal Light. 

R. I. P. 

1. 

HIS life — aye, all that he could give — 
He gave — this warrior, nameless here. 
But new-named in a loftier sphere. 
Who died that those he loved might live. 

2. 

Crosses in rows — they tell the price 
Paid by our heroes for world-rest. 
And, telling it, make manifest 

The splendour of self-sacrifice. 

3. 

Some of our friends were slain in fight, 
Some by mischances; others, bound 
On peaceful errands, U-boats drowned; 

But all were martyrs in God's sight. 



8 

Soldier and sailor, Red Cross knight 

And dame, the innocents whose blood 
Is on the tyrant's head, all stood 

For Liberty and for the Right. 

Therefore we think of them as dear 

To God, and very neav to Him; 

Therefore our commendative hymn 
Is as a wreath upon their bier. 

4. 
Our dead — we chant their requiem; 
Lord, make Thy Face to shine on them, 
And grant them rest for evermore, 
Who won us peace by waging war. 

5. 

He fell, not in the forefront of the fight, 
But, fever-smitten, in a camp at home; 

Yet, none the less, he died for Truth and Right, 
Who, when his Country called, answered, "I 



Lama Sabachthani? 

HOW could the Lord of Righteousness 
Suffer our agony? 
How could He watch our long distress, 
And bear it? Mystery. 

Our cause was His. We fought for Right, 

We fought for Liberty, 
For Innocence oppressed by Might, 

For Tmth, for Equity. 



9 

Aye, all our life is mystery; 

Yet, flashed thoro' the gloom. 
Come gleams of light from Calvary, 

And from the bursten tomb. 

Evil is not the end of things; 

Death is a door to life; 
A righteous One is King of kings; 

Peace is the prize of strife — 

That is the witness of the Cross, 

And the first Easter morn; 
Gain may be in apparent loss; 

Thro' travail joy is born. 

Evil is as a test; it tries 

Our wills; as we resist 
Its temptings or assaults, we rise 

Upward — toward the Christ. 

Sonship^ divine — that is the height 

Which beckons every soul; 
"Fight," says the Gospel, "faith's good fight, 

And you shall reach the goal." 

Christ fought His way back to the throne. 

He left to bring us life — 
Fought it as Man, that all His ovv^n 

Might conquer in the strife. 

Some day shall dawn upon our eyes 

A glory from above. 
Whose rays shall pierce all mysteries. 

And show that God is Love. 



10 

A War of The Lord 

HAD He been present as the Nazarene 
In Belgium, what time the bi-utal Hun 
Wrought his foul crimes, his cruelties obscene, 
What would the Christ, have done ? 

Would He, Who to the smiters gave His back, 

And stayed Saint Peter, when he would have 
fought, 

Have used His power to break the foes' attack? 
"We doubt it" — is our thought. 

But, doubting this, how can we think it right 

That Christian hosts should war to conquer ill — 

Should use as battle-cry "Right against Might"? 
Would that have been His will? 

Ah yes; He would have willed it; for His own 
He intervened e'en in Gethsemane. 

'Twas for Himself that He would not call down 
Michael's chivalry. 

He would not fight His human foes; not so 

Could He have paid the debt He came to pay; 

Aye, but He fought man's spiritual foe. 
And broke his yoke for aye. 

And ever since He is with them who war 
To beat down evil and bring in the Right; 

His Spirit is in their hearts, and evermore 
Strengthens their hands to fight. 



11 

At times He flashes visions on their eyes, 

That manifest His Presence, as of the sign, 

A Cross, whose legend, blazed across the skies, 
Converted Constantine. 

At times He speaks; there comes to souls a word, 
Clear as a call of human utterance, 

As when the saintly maid of Orleans heard 
His voice, and rallied France. 

His angels are His ministers of grace. 

Yet His Sabaoth too— an "arm§d throng" 

That wars at all times, and in every place. 
With every form of wrong. 

And, when the Dragon and the Beast unite. 

In Earth's last strife, their hosts against the 
Lord, 

The White-horsed Rider shall go forth, and smite 
Them with His own sharp sword. 

Lux e Tenebris 

DEFORE the thousand years of peace 
^ Can come to bless our troubled earth. 
All evil must be made to cease. 

And Earth must have a second birth. 

Aye, and, ere evil is subdued, 

It will exalt itself on high: 
Will rouse against the powers of good 

All hell — all that is devilry. 

Not lightly will that hellish force 

Fall backward, and give up the fight; 



12 

But He, Who rides on the white horse, 
Shall conquer and bring in the Right. 

That is the darkest hour of night 

What time the day-spring is toward; 

So evil rises to its height 

To fall before the /coming Lord. 

Satan is still a curse and power; 

Aye, and yet our late agony 
Foreshadows earth's redemption-hour — 

The triumph of Christ's victory. 

Thou, in Whose Name we waged this war, 
Bring in an Order which shall be 

N'ow, and till time shall be no more, 
An earnest of Thy sovranty. 



An Antichrist 

WHAT shall be done to him whose lies 
Plunged the whole world in trouble ? 
The doom of Babylon replies, 
"Double to him the double." 

To work out his insensate plan 

Of self-glorification, 
He slandered God, he slandered man, 

He slandered all Creation. 

He said that Frank and Slav were bent 
On schemes of wild ambition: 

He claimed to be God's agent, sent 
On a world-conquering mission. 



13 

His troops swept Belgium's country-side, 
And left the corn-crops stubble; 

The little folk struggled and died; 

What must he pay ? "The double." 

They sacked fair towns of France, and turned 

Cathedrals into rubble; 
Treasures they could not take, they burned; 

What does he owe? "The double." 

Each word a lie, each act a crime, 

Each thought a profanation. 
He sets a record for all time 

Of self-wrought degradation. 

Now his wild dream is past and gone — 

Gone like a bursten bubble; 
Eemains the doom of Babylon, 

"Double to him the double." 



Mega lomania 

POWER unlimited is not for man; 
It is as an intoxicant that blunts 
Man's conscience, till the drunken soul affronts 
All Right, and calls dov/n Heaven's indignant ban. 

So fell Napoleon's castle in the sky; 

So fell of yore the old-world tyrannies; 

So falls, like Lucifer never to rise 
Again, the Hohenzollern dynasty. 

V/hence comes the ambition of cosmocracy — * 

Of world-wide rule ? The Fathers reckoned it 



14 

An emanation from the abysmal pit — 
Gehenna's answer to man's selfish cry. 

Satan would rule the world; the impulse is 
Satanic — born of pride — for these would-be 
World-rulers all seek their- own dignity; 

But God is Lord, and Heaven and Earth are His. 

He waits, yet ever gathers in His own; 

The day will come — is in the coming now — 
When all the nations of the world shall bow. 

As of one heart, one will, before His throne. 

* Kosmokrator — in Ecclesiastical writers of evil spirits, from 
Ephes. VI. 12. — "the world-rulers of this darkness." 



Hearts of Oak 

THE merchantmen, that occupy 
Their business on the sea. 
Mayn't be the ocean's chivalry, 
Who keep its waters free; 

And yet they serve a ministry, 
Grand as the warship's deeds, 

Who use the ocean's liberty 

To meet all countries' needs. 

Cargoes they bear of food-supplies 
For hungry folk's content; 

They sail with stores of merchandise, 
Whithersoever sent. 

Aye, and they bring together lands 
Far-sundered by the sea; 



15 

And thro' them East and West shake hands 
In friendly courtesy. 

To carry on their industry 

They plough a perilous path 

O'er the wild waters, and defy 

Tempests' and billows' wrath. 

All this in peace; in the world-war 

They faced, as never a one 
Of all their craft had faced before, 

The U-boats of the Hun. 

It mattered not; with never a doubt, 

Tho' thousands of them lie 
Full fathom five, they stuck it out, 

Dogged to do or die. 

Aye; they are manned by hearts as brave 

As ever fought a fight — 
Hearts that fear naught so they may save 

Brothers in evil plight. 

Duty their watchword: duty done 

Their vision and their aim: 
They claim and take their place upon 

The honour-roll of fame. 



Parta Quies 

THEY are not dead — the friends who gave 
Their lives for Freedom and for Right; 
They kept the faith; they fought the fight 
Christ fought, and triumphed o'er the grave. 



16 

Thro' divers forms of death they went, 

But one the life to which they won — 
The life to which all duty done 

Is as a pathway of ascent. 

The many mansions of the • blest, 
The radiant meads of Paradise, 
Its fair and happy companies, 

Have welcomed them. They are at rest. 

Unwearied, undisquieted, 

Unvexed, they serve love's ministries, 
And, as they serve their service, rise 

From grace to grace. They are not dead. 



Faithful unto Death 

MILLIONS of graves — all memories 
Of generous blood outpoured 
To stay the brute atrocities 

Of mailed list and drawn sword! 

Not all in vain the apparent loss 

Of gallant lives and true; 
That, which was witnessed by the Cross, 

Is witnessed here anew. 

Peace is the prize of war; true peace 

Was born on Calvary; 
Its birth alike and its increase 

Are of Christ's agony. 

What hinders peace? Lust, falsehood, pride- 
Tempers that, when man fell, 



17 

He g-ot from hell; but, as He died, 
Christ broke the gates of hell. 

That they might help to clear the way 
For peace these champions fought; 

It's ours to see to it that they 

Shall not have died for naught. 



'*Their Wonted Fires'' 

WHERE are the gallant souls whose names 
Live in all history: 
The splendour of whose exploits flames 
Like stars across the sky? 

Thro' fairer, loftier spheres than this 

Their deathless spirits roam; 
Aye, yet return at times, ywis, 

To Motherland and home. 

The spirit of Drake yet haunts the seas 

That beat on Devon's coasts; 
Roland, Jeanne d'Arc — their presences 

Still, lead the Gallic hosts. 

What time the Austrian legions swept 

Down upon Italy, 
Forth once again Aetius leapt, 

And broke the enemy. 

Aye, and we wonder now and then 

Whether it may not be 
That heroes' souls take flesh again. 

To serve some ministry. 



18 

If so, the heart of him, who was 

Sans peur et sans reproche. 
May beat, re-incarnated, as 

The heart of General Foch. 

Assurance lies beyond our keij; 

And yet the Tishbite seer 
Lived in the Baptist's life again, 

As the Christ's pioneer. 

Who shall deny it then? And who, 

However that may be, 
Can doubt that loving hearts and true 

Keep faith eternally? 

"Love strong as death" — said the wise man- 
Aye, stronger; Charity 

Lives on thro' chance and change, nor can 
Death end its energy. 

The love of country and of kin 

Abides here and beyond; 
Who quickens it our hearts within. 

He will not break the bond. 



An American Citizen 

AMERICA will miss him — her strong man. 
Her stalwart, strenuous son — 
Dead, ere his life had compassed its full span: 
Dead, ere his work seemed done. 

Rough-rider, statesman, ready of pen and tongue, 
But readier still of hand — 



19 

We think of him as not the least among 
Those who have ruled our land. 

Aye, for he grasped the thing called "politics" — 

The politics of his time — 
And purged it — purged it of the graft and tricks 

That made the craft a crime. 

His work, his influence, made for righteousness; 

His word was as his bond; 
Rough diamond he was, but none the less 

A very diamond. 

His life speaks — ah, what memories it awakes! 

Surely all souls of men 
Are better for his vision of what makes 

A patriot citizen. 

Mistakes he made, no doubt; what doer of deeds 
But makes them? His "big stick" 

Smote fiercely, but abuse of privilege needs 
Smitings threefold and thick. 

A fighter born, he fought for Truth and Right — 

Fought to make evils cease; 
He did his best — did it with all his might; 

Now may he rest in peace! 



A Man 

l^ELTIC and Basque — a fighting strain, 
^^Aye, and clear-headed too; 
Of it come thinkers, keen of brain, 
And warriors good and true. 



20 

It proved its grit in days of yore 

When Viriathus wight 
Met and beat back the Roman war 

In square, straightforward fight. 

And so, when France called for a son 
To smite the brutal Boche, 

The Pyrenees answered anon, 
And sent Marechal Foch. 

Fire from the Kelt: will, as of rock. 
From Ebro's ancient, brood: 

Wit from the great Cro-Magnon stock 
All this is in his blood. 

If he's a man, who instantly 
Leaps forth to meet a need, 

And meets it, this emergency 
Called forth a man indeed. 

Note. Foch comes from Keltic foex, fire. 



A Veteran 

WHEN we have come to seventy years, 
We mostly long for rest — 
Rest from life's round of doubts, and fears, 
And toil, and ceaseless quest. 

No longer do we tax our brains 

Or bodily energies; 
We use what little strength remains 

In quiet ministries. 



21 

That is a common rule of life; 

Aye, but it wasn't so, 
When duty called him back to strife, 

With Premier Clemenceau. 

Six years beyond the allotted span 
Had marked his bodily frame; 

Aye, but the spirit of the man — 
That was not less aflame. 

"The Tiger"! Well, there's tiger's grit 
And pluck in the old sage. 

And tiger's dash, but never a bit 
Of tiger's greed and rage. 

He had to face graft, treachery, 
Intrigues, counsels of fear; 

The Roosevelt of his country, he 
Cleared the whole atmosphere. 

Foch saw to matters at the front; 

Clemenceau ruled the State; 
Each in his own sphere bore the brunt, 

And each stood fast as Fate. 

Some baulked; Clemenceau didn't care; 

To each and every one 
His answer was — "Je fais la guerre"; 

He played the game, and won. 

Statesmen are rare; yet, as the war 
Swayed nations to and fro. 

It found some, and, well to the fore, 
Premier Clemenceau. 



22 



A Portrait 

A KINDLY face, a friendly pair 
Of eyes, that frankly meet my gaze, 
Smile on me from my secretaire, 

And light the gloom, of gloomy days. 

It speaks — that face; there's that in it 

That greets and questions; that implies 

Good-humour, resolution, wit. 
Equal to any enterprise. 

In the dark hours of doubt and fear, 

When France staggered in evil plight, 

It seemed to say, "Be of good cheer; 
God is, and ^\^ll defend the Right". 

And now that peace has put an end 
To the foul crimes of brutal might. 

It asks, with twinkling eyes, "Ah, Friend, 
Do you not see that I was right"? 

Thanks, Marshal Joffre! Your countenance 
Has been to me a cheering sight; 

I guess that Belgium, Britain, France, 
Read a great gospel in its light. 



The Cro-Magnons 

THREE hundred centuries of years 
Before this present year of grace. 
Westward, from where Mount Elbruz rears 
Its height, went forth a mighty race. 



23 

Big-framed, big-brained, bred to the chase. 
Lovers of peace, yet apt to war. 

They dwarfed in wit, in art, in grace, 
All races that had gone before. 

In wit? Ah well — they might have met 

Our brainiest heads, and held their own; 

Their art still speaks in statuette, 
In frescoed ceil, and graven stone. 

Men of a prehistoric age. 

No rude barbarians were they; 

Cultured, refined, they mark a stage 
High up on man's ascending way. 

Visions of life beyond the grave 

Had come to them, and,_when they laid 

Their dead to rest in grot or cave, 

With reverent care each bed was made. 

For some ten thousand years they held 
In Western Europe foremost place; 

Then passed, as in an honoured eld. 
Yet leaving records of their race. 

Records? Aye, living memories. 
Not simply tokens of their skill; 

For all about the J^yrenees 

You'll find Cro'-Magnon manhood still. 

Were they of our forbears? Maybe. 

The question's moot; but, anyhow, 
Since they made homes in our Countree, 

Their presence should be with us now. 



24 

Aye, and their memory should uplift 

Our hearts to noble thought and aim; 

What should we be if men o' the Drift 

Were such ? Shall they put us to shame ? 



Survivals 

THE European Continent 
In prehistoric times 
Was given to experiment 

In peoples and in climes. 

Thro' glacial, interglacial, 

Postglacial, times she passed; 

And settled, having proved them all. 
That she preferred the last. 

She tried the Heidelbergs, and then 
Neanderthals — both these 

Were of the genus Homo — men. 
But not sapientes. 

She gave each race in turn a lease, 
But, as they didn't suit, 

Having arranged their obsequies. 
She gave them both the boot. 

They passed into oblivion. 
Frozen, or swept away 

By the great race of Cro-Magnon — 
A race that came to stay. 

Sapientes were these? Ah yes; 
In all ways they made good; 



25 

Neyer had Caucasus, I guess, 
Sent forth a finer brood. 

They kept for five-score centuries 

Their pride of place, and, when 
They broke up into colonies. 

They hadn't finished then. 
/\ 
There are Cro-Magnons yet, as round 

The Pyrenees, and, where 
Right in the heart of France they found 

A home, on the Vezere. 

They chose the South and West; a few 

Neanderthals, and their 
Ancestral Heidelbergers too, 

Remained up North — somewhere. 

But, while the Heidelbergs may live 

Resurgent in the Boche, 
The great Ci'o-Magnon hearts survive 

In men like General Foch. 

So long as it can breed such men — 
So strong i' the arm, so stout 

Of heart, so keen of wit and ken — 
A race is not played out. 



Distress of Nations 

'"THRO' tribulation must we win 
•*• Into the Heavenlies; 
Thro' tribulation enter in 
The Eternal Presences; 



26 

We must be purified, and they 

Must break. down all that blocks their way. 

This earth of ours is, as it were, 

A floor, whereon alway 
Our human corn is threshed, and where 

The chaff is cast away; 
And of the things that purge the floor. 
And thresh the grain, are Pain and War. 



How Long, O Master? 

SPIRITS of evil haunt the air, 
It seems, here, there, and everywhere. 
What does it mean? That what the seer 
Foresaw far off is now and near? 

He saw the armies of the Beast 
From North and South and West and East 
Gathered to w^age their final fight 
Against the powers of Ti-uth and Right. 

Not only men, but devils too, 
Were niarshalled in that impious crew; 
And the false prophet's prophecies 
Were backed by evil spirits' lies. 

We thought and hoped, when the brute Hun 
Collapsed, and victory was won. 
That Peace w^ould rest on us, and bless 
Our hearts with quiet happiness. 



27 

Scarce had the roar of battle ceased 
When came fresh tokens of the Beast — 
The Bolshevists* atrocities, 
And mutterings of new blasphemies. 

Aye, and it is as tho' this ill — 
This curse of self-love and self-will — 
Had, like the Spanish plague's offence, 
Become a world-wide pestilence. 

Look where you will, there face you those 
On whom the Beast's sign-manual shows — 
The mark that brands, as antichrists, 
Huns, Turks, "Red Bonnets", Bolshevists. 

How long, Lord, how long — we cry — 
Shall Earth be vexed by devilry? 
How long shall Evil boast its might ? 
How long shall Wrong affront the Right? 

We pause and listen. From the sky 
Comes back no answer to our cry; 
But thro' our hearts echoes the word — 
"Lo, I am with you — I, your Lord". 

"Faint not", it says, "but do the Right 
With all your will, with all your might; 
Do in My Name that which you do, 
And you shall find My promise tine. 

"By word and deed preach Holiness — 
Reverence, law-abidingness; 
By word and deed preach Charity — 
Fellowship, Justice, Sympathy. 



28 

"I stand, as Stephen saw Me, still 
To succour all who do My will; 
I come to chase all wrongs away." 

* * * * 

"Amen; so come, Master" — we pray. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 




